


Blackout

by dashakay



Series: Blackout [1]
Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: F/M, Joctavia, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:39:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7555165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never planned for anything like this to happen but the train car is jammed like the Medina on a Saturday night and he’s pressed up against her and suddenly she’s utterly aware of his presence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows show canon, not book canon. This is for starrynight-over-thepast, my chief enabler and queen of fic support. 
> 
> Belter creole words, courtesy of Nick Farmer, are in italics. There’s a glossary at the end of the chapter.

This isn’t supposed to be happening, not at all. It was just a regular, average night. Busted some dealers, interviewed witnesses in a murder case, did more paperwork than her soul could handle. After shift, they went to the Hyacinth to spend a chunk of their year-end bonuses on good vodka brewed by those Russo-Koreans with a Mars potato connection.

Octavia isn’t drunk, not at all, but she’s definitely buzzed as the Tube train rockets southward, crammed with water plant workers on their way home after a long shift. The car smells like dirty coveralls and tired, sweaty bodies. Almost no one is speaking. The viewscreens are fizzing with static instead of blaring the day’s news. The only sounds she can hear are the whoosh and rumble of the train car as it travels through the tunnels and, faintly, that Malaypop song about lost love that’s been playing everywhere.

She never planned for anything like this to happen but the train car is jammed like the Medina on a Saturday night and he’s pressed up against her and suddenly she’s utterly aware of his presence. Everything else around her fades to a dull gray and all she can think about is the fact that he’s very, very close to her. Over the general stench of the crowd around her, she can make out the scent of a soap or cologne he uses, something dark and spicy, and the almost medicinal smell of vodka on his breath. He exhales and she feels the warmth of boozy carbon dioxide waft over her cheek.

This is Miller, she reminds herself. Miller—her work partner of only nine weeks, for whom she has never exhibited the slightest bit of interest and vice-versa. It’s not as if he’s good looking. He’s all arms and legs, sad eyes, and that ridiculous hat. Miller is twelve years older than her, divorced (more than once if you believe the station gossips), probably drinks too much. Words bandied around about Miller: burnout, loser, corrupt, _dzhemang_. Some of the Belter cops have the nerve to call him _welwala_. Talk _about juokiasi puodas, kad katilas juodas_.

This is Miller, Octavia repeats in her head. She’s never thought about him like this in her life. _Never._ Well, there was that one time but it was a dream and dreams don’t count. And those couple of times she drifted off in roll calls when Shaddid was droning on about professionalism, those don’t count, either. An extremely bored brain will conjure up all sorts of things like shoving her partner against a wall in a dark alley and kissing him. Completely understandable.

The train jolts as it rounds a curve and Miller is pushed against her even closer and she’s uncomfortably conscious of how close he is to her and that he’s a man, just a man after all. Something hard is pressing against the small of her back and she’s pretty sure it’s not his gun. Her cheeks grow hot as she realizes, maybe for the first time, that he wants her. In this dim, dirty Tube car, he’s hard as granite and he wants her.

Looking back on their night at the Hyacinth, maybe she should have paid more attention to what now clearly seem like signs. Instead of joining a big table of their fellow Star Helix, Miller steered her to a table way in the back, where it was less crowded. “I don’t want to deal with those assholes,” he’d said under his breath. He insisted on paying for the first two rounds of the expensive vodka. For the first time she heard him laugh, un-ironic belly laughs as she told him about the time she had to tackle a buck naked, tweaking 125-kilo man in the middle of the Medina during an OPA rally. And as he laughed, he lightly slapped her arm as if he couldn’t contain himself.

Later, after four shots of vodka, he took her hand and briefly squeezed it when she spoke about how Manuel had left her after the miscarriage and took up with her cousin Naly. She doesn’t even know why she told Miller that. She knew better than to mix up the personal and the professional but there she was, blathering away about how she threw Manuel’s clothes over the balcony and hocked his collection of priceless Ceres Storm memorabilia. His hand was warm and dry to the touch and for a moment, she looked up at him and thought, _oh_. Oh, Miller.

She’s beginning to notice that she does an awful lot of lying to herself.

The train shudders to a halt and the lights flicker out. All she can see is velvety black. Another power outage. There seem to be more and more of them these days. Instead of shouting and swearing, like usual, the crowd simply exhales an exhausted collective sigh. Everyone just wants to go home.

Octavia finds herself slowly shifting her body, wiggling around until she thinks she must be facing Miller. She reaches out and touches what feels like his shoulder, just to be sure he’s still there. “Is that you?” she says.

“I’m here,” he says, his voice hoarse.

She’s not going to do it, she’s not going to do it, she’s _not_ , but something makes her lift her face up to his and, her heart madly banging against her sternum, press her lips against his. Oh no, she thinks, this is going to be bad.

Chapter 6, Rule 27 of the Star Helix Employee Rules and Regulations states: “Star Helix employees shall not engage in a relationship of a romantic and/or sexual nature with one another. Disciplinary remedies may include censure, probation, unpaid administrative leave, and/or termination of contract.”

Not that anyone pays attention to that rule.

Her lips touch his and she feels his lips part under hers. Gentle, it’s so gentle and unhurried, as if they’re not in a crowded and blacked-out Tube car somewhere in the heart of an asteroid. Miller tastes like alcohol and faintly of minty toothpaste. She feels his hand brush her cheek and then the back of her neck to pull her closer to him. His tongue touches her, warm and alive, and she almost jerks at the electricity of the contact. I’m kissing him, she frantically thinks. I’m kissing Miller and it feels so good.

He suddenly pulls away from her. “Are you sure you want to be doing this, Muss?” he whispers in her ear.

“I do,” she whispers back.

“Because if you’re just drunk and lonely…”

She touches her forehead to his, somehow wanting to cry. She _is_  a little drunk and lonely, but that’s not just it. It’s more than that. She wants him, she truly wants him. She’s not entirely sure why, but she wants all of him. It’s everything—the rare quirk of his smile, how the light sometimes illuminates his cheekbones and makes him look like one of the holy icons in her auntie’s living room, the low rumble of his voice, how he can be an asshole on duty but is unfailingly kind to children, how when they’re working he’s always got her back and trusts her to have his, how when he talks he gestures in the air with his long, slender fingers. 

“I’m not drunk and while I might be lonely, I want you. _You_ , Miller.” There, she said it. No turning back now.

Miller kisses her then, this time harder and more insistently, so that she has to wrap her arms around his neck to hold on. She feels like she’s dissolving into him, that they’re merging into one creature. His stubble is scraping her face and she doesn’t care about how she’ll probably have a beard rash tomorrow. Nothing matters in this time and space but devouring him with her lips and tongue.

Her hand snakes out to touch him where he’s hard against his thigh and he stifles a moan. “Not here,” he whispers. “Don’t do that here.”

Just to be contrary, she gives his erection a little squeeze and hears him curse under his breath. “ _Mussssss_ ,” he hisses.

Just as suddenly as they’d gone out, the lights sputter back on, shocking her dilated pupils. They pull apart from each other like thieves caught in the bank vault. Octavia finds that she can’t look him in the face and stares down at her own hands, uselessly fluttering in the tiny space between their bodies.

The train lurches into motion, sending her into Miller’s chest.

“I can’t wait to get you home,” he murmurs, rubbing her back as if she’s a fretful child.

She can’t wait to get home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belta Glossary:
> 
>  _dzhemang_ \- asshole (literally “crooked dick”)
> 
>  _welwala_ \- someone who is obsessed with the gravity well, that is, the inner planets
> 
>  _juokiasi puodas, kad katilas juodas_ \- the pot calling the kettle black (literally “pot laughs cause kettle is black”)


	2. Chapter 2

They walk through the darkened streets to her apartment. At this late hour, the neighborhood feels abandoned; the only people out and about are a few shift workers heading home and several drunks staggering around. A wild-eyed man stands at one corner, waving his hands. “ _Tenye wa yitim gut!”_ he shouts. New Year’s Day was a week ago. 

Miller is walking so quickly that Octavia is having trouble keeping up with his strides. For the first time, she wonders if she made a terrible mistake. It feels awkward, this nine-block walk in the dark. She wonders if she’s having buyer’s remorse. She wonders if _he’s_ having buyer’s remorse. She tries to remember if her place is clean. Is there underwear strewn on the floor of her bathroom? Did she do the dishes or is she just imagining it? 

Finally, they reach her building. Her heart starts accelerating as they climb the stairs to the third floor. She tells herself to calm down, but her body is clearly not listening to her brain.

She unlocks the door, turns the lights on and, to her relief, finds her place reasonably neat. Not that Miller seems like the kind of guy who’d really care. Now what, she thinks. She’s forgotten how this business goes. She was with Manuel for six years and since then, almost two years ago, nobody. 

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asks, watching him take off his hat and toss it on the coffee table as if he’s been to her place a million times. He runs his fingers through his hair. “Water? I think I have a couple of beers.” 

“Water would be great.” His eyes turn to her and the look he gives her makes goosebumps rise on her skin. 

In the kitchen, her hand shakes a little as she pours water into a couple of glasses. A few drops of precious water splash on the countertop. Don’t drop the glasses, she warns herself, imagining having to sweep up shards of glass while Miller stands there in her living room. 

She takes a deep breath for courage as she walks into the other room. Why was it easy and natural when they were on the Tube and now it feels so strange? Perhaps she should turn the lights off. It's easier in the dark.

“Cheers,” he says, clinking his glass against hers and taking a long swallow. She watches his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he drinks. 

Miller sets his glass down on the table. “Come here,” he says, his voice sandpaper. 

Octavia finds herself enfolded in his arms, her face buried in his neck. Her heartbeat immediately slows as she breathes in his spicy scent, accords of cloves and leather. She steps back to look up at him and he’s gazing at her with an expression that’s tender and amused at the same time. 

“ _Gufovedi_ ,” he says, tracing her lower lip with his fingertip. 

Heat rises in her face. It feels oddly intimate to have him speak to her in Belta, the language of home and family. 

“ _Na_ ,” she says, shaking her head. She knows she’s not especially beautiful. Attractive, sure. Her two older sisters were renowned in the old neighborhood as beauties but she was always just plain old Tavi, reading and playing ball instead of learning to apply eyeliner and flirt with boys. 

He shakes his head. “ _Na, mi showxa da sheng_ ,” he rasps.   

She kisses him and the awkwardness fades away as she feels the stubble on his face scraping against her skin. Say what you want about Miller, and there are a lot of things one could say about him, the man can kiss. Long-neglected neural pathways bloom anew. Her entire body is tingling and she realizes that she’s getting wet, just from his kisses. Miller is doing this to her. _Miller_. 

They slowly stagger in the direction of her bedroom, kissing all the way. Inside the room, lit only by her small bedside lamp, Miller’s hands snake under her shirt, his hands roaming and exploring at will. She lightly bites his neck when his fingers reach her breasts, stroking and circling the fabric of her bra, making her nipples hard. The next thing she knows, the shirt has been flung to the floor, along with the bra, and he’s working her leggings down her legs. 

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” he whispers, his breath hot in her ear. 

“But I _want_ to…” That’s the weird thing. She wants him more than she’s ever wanted a man, even stupid Manuel. Cranky asshole Miller, her partner, the guy sitting at the desk opposite hers, with his craggy face and habit of licking his lower lip when he’s concentrating. She wants him. 

He gives her a little push and she flops down onto the bed, wearing only her underwear. Miller is still fully dressed in white shirt, black vest and trousers, and makes no move to remove his own clothes. She feels exposed, completely naked before him when he’s fully dressed but it’s a good feeling, she finds. While she knows she won’t win any beauty contests, she likes her body, likes the curve of her hips and her breasts. 

Miller bends down and slowly pulls her by the legs to the edge of the bed, so that her legs are hanging off the end. He kneels and she can feel his finger trace the elastic edge of her underpants. His lips press against her belly and his tongue traces little circles around her belly button. It tickles a little and she finds herself giggling. 

The laughter stops as his tongue drags over her lower abdomen to her panties. Oh, she dreamily thinks. Is he going to…? 

He is. She feels his fingers hook around the edge of her underpants and he gently tugs them off her legs. Octavia props herself up on her elbows so she can watch his dark head disappear between her legs. She feels like he’s a supplicant, kneeling before her still dressed, offering his worship as his tongue darts between her folds. She spreads her legs wider for him, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. 

She stops thinking almost entirely when she feels one of his long, long fingers slide inside her, inside where she’s so wet and ready for him. One finger becomes two and she has to close her eyes now as his tongue laps at her clit and his fingers glide in and out of her. She can hear herself raggedly breathing, faster and faster in concert with his fingers and tongue. 

Lost as she is in the wonderful things he’s doing to her, she knows, from somewhere primal in the back of her brain that she’s not going to come. Not this time. Everything is too new. She’s much too conscious of everything that’s happening and the fact that it’s Miller who is doing it to her. 

She sits up a little more and places her hand on his head, twining her fingers in his surprisingly soft hair. “Miller,” she says, but he doesn’t seem to hear her. “Miller,” she repeats, louder this time. 

He lifts his head from between her thighs and looks up at her. The look in his eyes, oh. 

“I’m sorry,” she stutters. “I’m sorry but I don’t think I can…” For some reason, even though she’s a grown woman, she finds she can’t quite say the words. 

He silently nods and stands. For a brief, panicked instant, Octavia thinks he’s going to leave but instead he starts unbuttoning his shirt. She grabs a pillow and sits up against it, watching his body emerge from his clothes. He’s as thin as he looks fully dressed but she notices the muscles in his arms and shoulders and wonders how she failed to see them before. His chest is lightly covered in dark hair and she remembers a couple of times when she spotted his chest hair peeking from the vee of his shirt and had to avert her eyes because it felt too sexual, too raw for the workplace. 

She watches him as he removes his trousers and drops them on the chair in the corner of the bedroom. Another laugh bubbles in her throat as he winks at her while he slides his underwear down his thighs. She wasn’t sure he even had much of a sense of humor, besides biting sarcasm, but tonight is full of surprises. He’s fully erect, his cock long like his fingers. Her fingers ball into fists as she imagines getting her hands on it. 

“Shove over,” he says as he joins her in bed, rolling onto his side to face her. 

Octavia scoots over a little and turns to him, her hand grasping him by the back of the neck to bring his face to her. She kisses him, long and slow. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling away from her mouth. 

“For what?” 

“That I couldn’t…that I didn’t make you come.” He grimaces. 

She shakes her head. “It’s not you. For me, it’s difficult sometimes. Especially if it’s the first time. I can’t get my brain to shut up.” 

“Well,” he says, sounding philosophical. “We’ve got all night. Tomorrow, even.” 

“Practice makes perfect,” she says, smiling. 

“It’s been a long time for me.” 

“How long?” 

That grimace again. “Three years,” he says. “Since my wife left.” 

So, they have that in common then. “It’s been a long time for me, too,” she says. She spots a puckered scar on his upper arm and gently touches it. “What’s this?” 

He makes a sound in the back of his throat that she can’t quite read. “It’s a burn scar,” he says. 

She knows she shouldn’t ask but she does anyway. “What happened?” 

Miller is silent for a long moment. “Got burned—boiling water. I don’t remember it. I was only two or three when it happened.” 

“I’m sorry,” she says, tracing the scar with her finger. “Didn’t your family tell you about it?” 

He stares straight ahead, not seeming to see her anymore. “I don’t have a family,” he says, his voice flat. 

Octavia’s heart sinks into her chest, sympathy welling in her for Miller, all alone in the universe. It explains a lot about him, the deeply etched lines of sorrow in his face and the proverbial chip on his shoulder. It’s Miller against the entire universe. She imagines his brain as a series of rooms, most of them closed off to her. She’s going to have to tread lightly and try to open them one by one. 

“You might not have a family but you’re not alone,” she whispers. “You’re not alone, Joe.” 

He smiles. “You’ve never called me by my first name before.” 

“Neither have you.” 

“Octavia,” he says slowly. _Oct-a-vi-a_ , each syllable cleanly enunciated. Hearing her given name in his rough voice does things to her she doesn’t quite understand. 

Enough talk. She kisses him, her hand traveling down his body to his cock. It has softened a bit but it starts springing to life as soon as she takes it in her hand and grasps it at the root. She hears him sharply inhale as she strokes him. She watches the muscles in his face relax and his mouth open. 

Suddenly, he pulls himself away from his hand. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” he mutters. He rolls her onto her back and straddles her. When he kisses her, they finally touch, skin to skin. His chest hair is coarse against her body and the muscles in his back tense under her hands. 

He touches her breasts, softly at first and then with firm, insistent fingers, circling her areole. He takes a nipple into her mouth, swirling his tongue around it. She feels desire move down her stomach and between her legs, where she’s wet, so wet and ready for him. Octavia wants him inside her, wants all of him at once but he lazily suckles at her as if he has all the time in the galaxy, his right hand finding its way between her legs again, greeting her clitoris as if it’s an old friend by now. 

“Miller,” she gasps as his fingers enter her again. “I want…I need…” 

He lifts his head from her chest. “Say it, Octavia.” 

“I want you to fuck me,” she says, in a firm and steady voice. She doesn’t think she’s ever been so sure of anything in her life. 

He rolls his eyes. “Impatient.” 

“ _Sabaka_ ,” she says, slapping his arm. “Don’t tease.” 

“I never do,” he says. 

She realizes she’ll have to take matters into her own hands, so to speak. Her hand finds his cock and she wraps her fingers around it and guides him into her, inch by inch until he’s fully inside her. 

“Octavia,” he hisses. “Oh, Octavia.” 

They move together slowly at first, as if trying each other’s rhythms out. She keeps her eyes locked onto his as he unhurriedly pushes his cock deep inside her and out again. She doesn’t want to miss anything about this experience. 

What if someone had told her this morning that she’d be fucking Miller, she dreamily thinks, stifling a laugh. She would have laughed herself silly and sick. 

She wraps her legs around his lower back and tilts her pelvis up toward him. Yes, _that_ , she thinks. Just like that. Miller’s thrusts become deeper and faster and she feels herself rising to meet each one halfway. Somewhere in the distance, she can hear someone moaning but she’s not sure which one of them it is. 

Octavia loses all sense of time and space. She’s breathing in sync with him—inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. She has to close her eyes now as every cell in her body is washed with pleasure. She wraps her arms around his back. Somehow, it feels like she’s opening up to him, deep inside, taking more and more of him into her with each thrust of his cock. Then, without warning, she feels the long thread of her orgasm spooling outward from her clitoris through her torso, spreading to each limb and, finally, up her spine to the base of her skull. 

When she returns to reality, still panting, she opens her eyes and sees Miller looking down at her. “ _Gufovedi_ ,” he says, kissing her forehead. 

She’d like to say that she wants to see him come too, but she finds it impossible to form actual words and sentences. Miller has somehow reduced her to a pre-lingual state, where she’s not even sure of her own name anymore. She hangs on for dear life, hands clasped around his sweaty back, as he drives harder and harder into her until he abruptly stops, his spine stiffening. “Octavia,” he gasps and she smiles in triumph, knowing he’s come, too. 

They’re still for a long minute, their breathing slowing. Finally, Miller rolls off her body onto his side and briefly kisses her damp forehead. “Damn, Muss,” he says with a trace of a laugh in his voice. “If I’d known it was going to be like this, I would’ve nailed you on day one.” 

She laughs into his chest. “Like you could have…” 

“Are you saying you weren’t swayed by my charms from the very beginning?” He brushes away a hank of hair that has fallen in his face. 

“Let’s just say you’re something of an acquired taste.” She laughs, thinking about the first time she met him and what an arrogant dickhead she thought he was. 

She carefully rolls off the bed. Laundry is expensive as hell and she’s not going to ruin her sheets. She totters to the bathroom and winces after she turns on the light. After she cleans up and pees, she stands and looks at herself in the mirror over the sink. Miller and I had sex, she tells herself. Her face in the mirror, flushed and a little sweaty, is not terribly surprised. 

Here comes the uncomfortable part, she thinks as she walks back into the bedroom. Miller is still lying on his side but he’s pulled the sheet over his body. She climbs in next to him. 

“Uh, you don’t need to stay overnight,” she says, her voice sounding higher pitched than normal to her ears. “I mean, not if you don’t want to. No obligation…” She hasn’t had a one-night stand in a long time and can’t remember the proper etiquette. Is this a one-night stand? She has no idea. 

“What if I want to stay overnight?” he says. “Or is this a nice way of kicking my ass out?”

She shakes her head. “No, not at all. I’d like it if you stayed.” 

“I want to stay.” 

She smiles. “Good.” 

He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. “I’m going to want you tomorrow and the next day, Octavia. But you need to know something about me.” 

Her heart starts accelerating again. “What?”  
  
“I’m not good at this, this love and romance shit. I can’t guarantee I won’t fuck it up.”

Octavia turns off the light and inches closer to him. “Why do you say that?” 

He makes an exasperated sound. “I was married to Candace for a long time. And I don’t think I made her happy for a single day of it.” 

She strokes his arm. “You don’t know that.” 

“But I want to try to make you happy. Just don’t know if I know how.” 

Something blooms in her chest. I can help him, she thinks. I can be the one who saves him. 

“I’m already happy, Joe,” she whispers into the dark room. And she is, that’s the wonderful part. It’s been so long that she can hardly recognize the feeling. 

From the street below, she hears the sound of glass breaking and drunken hollering. “ _Imim ta pashang milowda!_ ” someone shouts. 

Octavia rolls onto her side, facing away from him. She scrabbles in the dark for the clock built into the bedside table to turn off the alarm. “You okay if I turn on the sound masking?” she asks. 

“Sure.” 

The room fills with the rhythmic sound of what is supposed to be raindrops in a place on Earth called Cape Cod. She wonders where that is. She’s never bothered to look it up. 

Miller presses his chest against her bare back and kisses her temple. “This is nice,” he says. 

“I wish I could hear rain for real,” she says as a wave of sleepiness washes over her. “Feel it on my face.” 

“Yeah, me too.” 

For a long time, they lie together, listening to the rain beating steadily on the ground on a planet far away, until everything blacks out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belta glossary: 
> 
> _Tenye wa yitim gut_ – Happy new year 
> 
> _Gufovedi_ – beautiful, pretty 
> 
> _Na_ – no 
> 
> _Mi showxa da sheng_ – I’m telling the truth 
> 
> _Sabaka_ – swear word (derived from the Russian word for “dog”) 
> 
> _Imim ta pashang milowda_ – we’re fucked


End file.
